


Cat's Eyes and Broken Hearts

by toli-a (togina)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: 1920s, Angst, Childhood, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 15:28:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6759568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/togina/pseuds/toli-a
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being Steve's friend meant blood on your teeth and boots kicking into your ribs. Sometimes it meant looking up and seeing Steve's split knuckles landing the blow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cat's Eyes and Broken Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> As always, originally from tumblr and all thanks to cabloom the benevolent deity and therefore infallible beta.
> 
> Also, for some inexplicable reason, I made Bucky a year younger than Steve in this.

They knew Steve was possessive, knew he loved the same way that he _wanted_ , with blood and teeth and fists. They also knew that Steve leaped without looking, and that—when he did—he hurt himself most of all. (Of course, this didn’t mean that you were safe, that Steve wouldn’t bite down to the marrow with sharp teeth and sharper tongue.)

Steve didn’t bend. Not for injustice, not for the world or his frail lungs, not for anything that wasn’t what it _should_ be, even if that thing was someone he loved.

Sarah had watched him come home after his first, interminably long day at school, lip bloodied and head down. All the other children spilled off the sidewalks and out into the streets, swapping baseball cards or holding their older siblings’ hands.

The first day of second grade Steve’s chin still had gravel stuck in the scrape, but her boy’s head was up and he was beaming, chattering away before he’d even made it through the door. “And Ma, there’s this boy, James, and he’s in first grade this year, he says he lives closer to the bridge, above the old carriage stables that Mr. McCluskey says he’s turning into a garage. James has an older sister, Becky, she’s in fourth grade, she’s nine, and he says that she says that Sister Frances is just as awful as she looks, Ma, he says –”

Sarah wasn’t sure how this young James had said _anything_ , with Steve barely stopping to inhale, but she’d smiled, relieved there might be more for Steve at school than split lips and bruised bones.

James hadn’t come home with Steve until November, huffing under most of Steve’s weight, face red from exertion or from the cold. He was a Barnes, O’Brien on his mother’s side. He was a good boy, Sarah discovered, when he picked up the knife she’d set down in her haste to wrap Steve’s twisted ankle and peeled the potatoes as best as a little boy could.

She’d ruffled his dark hair in approval, and Steve’s smile could have lit their whole block. Sarah and Jamie smiled back, the kitchen warm and the world turning as it should.

Sarah and Bucky were supposed to love Steve, after all. And they did. Steve’s Ma wrapped bricks up to warm up the bed before he got in and she left for work, and Jamie started bringing extra handkerchiefs to school, because Steve’s flu could last for months. Jamie started walking home with Steve every afternoon, stayed through dinner if Becky didn’t fetch him, sometimes stayed long enough to warm Steve’s bed up better than heated bricks ever could. They played marbles on the warped wooden floor; Steve gave Bucky a cat’s eye marble for Christmas, one of his lucky shooters. And Ma would just smile and bring out a third plate for dinner, and Jamie said that Steve was the luckiest kid in the world, having a Ma who was so _nice_.

Then Steve got scarlet fever. He didn’t remember much of the next week, ice on the windows and haze across his eyes, aching down to his bones. Bucky stayed the whole time—loved Steve that much, fought with Steve’s Ma when she tried to make him leave—and ran errands during the day, sleeping on the floor and not in Steve’s bed because Mrs. Rogers said one sick boy was more than enough.

When Steve got back on his feet, at the icy end of February, the world had changed. Sarah and Bucky were supposed to love _Steve_ , after all. He woke up, and Bucky said he couldn’t stay as long because he’d promised Mrs. Rogers he’d make it to the market and back before dark. Steve’s Ma would reach out and tug Bucky closer on the sofa, tucking him against her and asking Bucky just as many questions about school as she asked Steve.

Steve couldn’t change anything his Ma did, he knew. If he shouted she would just shout right back, and wouldn’t make baked apples with sugar for a week. But he could fix Bucky.

“You can’t come over today,” he said, just before St. Patrick’s Day. “Ma said we can’t keep feeding extra mouths.” (Steve walked home slowly that day, his head down and his lips pressed together when his Ma asked where Bucky had gone. His eyes squeezed closed at night, trying not to think of Bucky’s face when he’d backed away after school, trying not to think about how cold the bed was without his best friend. Steve always hurt himself most of all.)

“He said it was boring,” Steve interrupted, when his Ma asked about Bucky’s day a week later. “First grade is just kid stuff.  Sister Dolores told us that second grade is where we _really_ start learning.” He winced—Sarah’s glare was as sharp as her son’s tongue—but Bucky shrugged and pushed the pot roast Mrs. Rogers had served him around his plate without eating it.

And the world went back to how it should be, where Ma loved Steve and Bucky loved Steve and never laughed with each other over cards when Steve was sick in bed, or talked about him like he wasn’t there. Only this world made Steve’s stomach hurt, especially when Bucky stayed so quiet and wouldn’t try Ma’s soda bread even when Steve said he could and never stayed for dinner.

It was April and raining. “Invite Jamie to stay for dinner,” his Ma said, waving her spoon at them as Steve shuffled Bucky toward the door. “And tell him he has to _eat_ something this time.”

Steve scuffed his socked foot along the floor. He didn’t want to invite Bucky to dinner. He didn’t like the way his stomach twisted up into his throat when Bucky sat at the table and sliced meat he wouldn’t eat, shrugged answers to questions about his sisters or his day.

“It’s okay,” Bucky said, already pulling open the door. “I’m just gonna –”

“You’ll do no such thing!” Steve’s mother interrupted, wiping her hands on her apron before walking over to ruffle Bucky’s hair. “You’ll stay for dinner, James Barnes, and you’ll clean every bit of your plate, since I made that apple pie you’ve been begging for since Christmas.”

Bucky _had_ loved the apple pie. But he didn’t smile when Steve’s Ma spoke—he glanced up at Steve, instead, eyes wary and shoulders hunched. (Steve waded into life with his fists curled, fighting asthma and flu and schoolyard bullies. He could hardly remember what it was, to unfold his fingers from his palm.)

“I don’t want him to stay for dinner!” Steve snapped, shrill and furious and trying to scream out the horrible twisting under his ribs. “I don’t want him to come over anymore! You’re my Ma, and I don’t like apple pie and Bucky doesn’t even brush his teeth everyday like you say we should!”

“ _Steven_!” his Ma bit out, the color high in her cheeks and her green eyes blazing. Then the door slammed, and she spun around and realized that Bucky was gone, out the door and into the rain, but the sick feeling in Steve’s stomach _wouldn’t go away_. “Sit. Down,” she commanded, looking angrier than Steve had ever seen.

“But –” he started, folding his arms and rubbing at his chest, wondering if it was the asthma.

“I swear to God, Steven Grant Rogers, if you don’t sit down _this instant_ and stay put, I will tan your hide so raw that you won’t sit for weeks. Do you understand me, lad?”

Steve swallowed hard, but his mother was out the door and clattering down the stairs before he could do so much as nod. He wanted to go to the window, to watch the rain come down in the yellow light of the streetlamps, to see if his Ma would catch Bucky before he was gone, but his body decided to collapse next to the open door, sobs tearing out of the twisted space in his chest, losing his breath to the asthma and the ache.

They came back before he’d stopped keening, both of them dripping wet. Bucky was wrapped in his Ma’s coat, and she chivvied him over to the stove and dried his hair with a towel while Steve tried to muffle his sobs into his knees.

Seconds later, a blanket settled onto his shoulders, and he blinked swollen eyes at the boy squatting beside him, naked except for the stove-warmed quilt. Steve looked up a little higher, where his Ma was wringing out Bucky’s clothes to dry and glaring at him with the threat of a paddling in her gaze.

Bucky stared at him for a long moment, pale eyes rimmed in red. Finally, he spoke. “Do you want your cat’s eye back?” he whispered, still squatting as though he might have to leap up and run.

_That’s a stupid question,_ Steve nearly said, because it was. “’Course not,” Steve said, instead, because that was the right answer. “How are you supposed to lose to me without a shooter?” he grumbled, and kept his mouth shut when his Ma gathered Bucky up to dress him in one of Steve’s nightshirts and some wool leggings. But the world was as it should be, because Bucky cleared his plate and kicked Steve’s calf under the table, and smiled when Steve’s Ma kissed them both goodnight. 

(Because loving Steve meant blood in your mouth and pain under your ribs. But there was apple pie and cold milk to wash out the taste of blood—and Steve never landed a hit without shattering his own heart most of all.)


End file.
